APRIL 1ST - No, it isn't a joke, you can vote for your favourite entry now!

Hi everyone! Welcome to March's Assignment!

The theme for this month is "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", as suggested by djfsolo who won the January 2010 competition. Be sure to read the whole post for the rules.

In djfsolo's own words:

"I'm never really good with coming up with these so forgive me if my themes are a bit left-field. I decided to turn to one of my favorite movies for the March theme:

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

It is what it is. The subject of the photo must be a plane, train, or automobile (or a combination). Black and white, color, strobe-lit, ambient-lit, night, day, whatever you want.

Please keep the PP under control- no selective color, adding/subtracting elements (a little cloning is okay), or over usage of effects."

The rules!

1: You can only submit one image and it MUST be taken during March 2011. Photos taken earlier will be disqualified!

2: All images submitted must be no more than 1024 pixels on their longest side, although you can include a link to a full resolution version if you like. Flickr users must link back to the original version to comply with its latest rules.

As always, please exercise good judgement on what is suitable for the forum. Keep it clean and family-friendly or it'll be removed. See the Forum Rules for guides.

Please include a sentence or two with your photo describing what you were trying to achieve and if there were any particular challenges in doing so like, for example, any special exposure or lighting setup.

We're all enthusiasts here, so it's also great to see what equipment you used and the settings too. So please also include the following:

I was in a bit of a hurry as I had no idea when the train was going to depart but the three original images came out very closely together despite not using a tripod. In honesty, I was a little disappointed to see a light flare when I checked the previews (serves me right for rushing and not attaching the hood) but looking at it more closely I thought that the flare could be used quite well in an HDR image and to me it gives the train a bit of an aura.

OK, so a static display on a rainy day was not ideal, but this F40 was too good to miss. To reduce the visual impact
of both the raindrops and any danger of the car merely being seen as a piece of 'automotive sculpture', I added some
speed lines using PS 'wind' filter and a bit of radial Blur on the wheel.

I suppose that that will earn me a slapped-wrist for over-use of 'effects' !!

Having followed the Paris-Nice road bike race for a week or so, I was often impressed by the amount of support that followed. Lucky for me considering the theme for this month. During the race they all have team cars in tow, when the riders are tightly grouped the cars arrive all together which makes for a great sight.